Seeing old friends

 Today was Saturday, apparently.  In only a few days I have already started to lose track of “real” time.  In my world it is simply “Leaving Elkford.”

Leaving Elkford today, we realized another good move made, as last night we heard terrible thunder and rain crashing down on little Elkford.  We were dry and mostly comfortable in our little haven by the liquor store.  We did get going fairly early, and immediately scrambled for breakfast and something to pack for lunch.  We went to the convenient store at the local gas station to get sandwiches, and asked where we could get breakfast.  Mel’s Diner was located about a mile away, so we rode off, only to find Mel on holiday.  Back we went, another mile, to find micro-wavable breakfasts at the same convenience store, plus coffee.  I wish Mel would have posted his holiday on Google, or whatever.

The top of a very early and long uphill first thing today

Finally got going, a bit later than expected.  The first thing was a 2.5 mile climb straight up the mountain, going away from our destination of (near) Fernie.  This was a bit of a tough one on a full stomach of convenience store microwaved food, but it worked out well.  We were able to enjoy a good morning of single track going towards Lily Lake, a small pond up there.  For the rest of the morning we were able to enjoy the gravity won in the morning.  We traveled slowly down that same mountain while gaining good miles.  It didn’t seem too long that we found ourselves in Sparwood, the next town south of Elkford.  It seemed to have about the same vibe, as an old coal mining town, and we were able to find a grocery store for some chocolate milk for our lunches.  And the lunch was spent in the shadow of like the largest dump truck ever made.  Like, really, this thing was huge, a remnant of past coal mining efforts, I guess.  

A really big truck

At the dump truck, eating our lunches we ran into our friend Ben, from Manchester U.K. who we met yesterday and ran into at lunch at the Blue Lake yesterday.  He’s doing the Divide by himself, a difficult task.  After lunch he asked to tag along with the Dinosaurs for the afternoon since we were heading in the same direction.  So off we went, and Ben quickly sped past us into the next single track section south of Sparwood.  After waiting for us about 3 times, Ben finally wisely decided to go back to solo work and said goodbye.  

Our goal today was to meet up with one of Patty’s high school friends and her husband, who have a “cabin” near Fernie.  We had talked about this last year when she had visited with Patty last October, when I had said I may be doing this trip.  We’ll, they are here and were waiting for us.  Or perhaps trying to meet up with us. Husband said he’d ride up from Hosmer, north of Fernie, to meet us on the trail.  Unfortunately even though Adventure Cycling said we would be on the Elk Valley Trail, in truth we were on and off of that trail, trading that for stints down a very rocky power line access road that parallels the highway.  We missed him and he headed back, and eventually Patty’s friend met us near Hosmer and drove us back to their place.  Just in time to see Ben barreling down the highway toward Fernie (we waved). The “cabin” was a very nice house near the highway in the valley north of Fernie.  The house has huge windows to see the mountains from across the way, and has the Elk River running behind it.  It was beautiful.  So, greeted by Luna their German Shepherd, we got to the house, showered, and were given a quick tour of Fernie, where Jerry could get a piece of equipment hopefully.  We went to a couple of bike shops in town, which has them because Fernie is the home of a huge number of mountain bike trails in the summer, and snow skiiing in the winter.  It was a really great place.

Visiting downtown Fernie, BC

We enjoyed a great dinner of Oomi pizza oven pies with salad and soup, a delicious change from the convenience store food for the past day.  We had a few hours to catch up, find out more about the area, and eventually see a badger in the front yard hunting for gophers like Bill Murray in Caddyshack.  Actually, without the explosives and likely more successfully. 

View of the mountains from the “cabin”

A really great way to spend after our 3rd day on the bikes.  Jerry had a rougher time today, so we will continue to have to monitor his condition, and my knee swoll up again like a balloon.  Such is the life of dinosaurs on wheels in Canadian British Columbia.  

Tomorrow we head toward the border.  I don’t think we’ll make it all of the way, and we’ll likely be camping tomorrow night, but it was really great day and evening today.